August Strindberg Totally Explained

Everything about August Strindberg totally explained

(January 22, 1849 – May 14, 1912) was a Swedish writer, playwright, and painter. Along with Henrik Ibsen, Søren Kierkegaard and Hans Christian Andersen he's arguably the most influential and most important of all Scandinavian authors. Strindberg is known as one of the fathers of modern theatre. His work falls into two major literary movements, Naturalism and Expressionism. (External Link

) He is one of the greatest authors in Swedish literature.

Early years

Strindberg was the third son of Carl Oscar Strindberg, a shipping agent from a bourgeois family, and Ulrika Eleonora (Nora) Norling. Ulrika was twelve years Carl's junior and of humble origin, called a "servant woman" in the title of Strindberg's autobiographical novel, Tjänstekvinnans son (The Son of a Servant). Strindberg's paternal grandfather Zacharias was born in 1758 to a clergyman in Jämtland and settled in Stockholm, where he became a successful spice tradesman and a major in the Burghers' Military Corps. Strindberg's aunt Johanna Magdalena Elisabeth Strindberg (1797-1880), also called "Lisette", was married to the inventor and industrialist Samuel Owen (born 1774 in Norton-in-Hales, Shropshire, England, died February 15, 1854 in Stockholm) who went to Sweden in 1804 to help with the installation of the first steam engines for industrial use in Sweden and later in 1806 set up his own workshop 'Kungsholms Mekaniska Verkstad' in Stockholm. Carl Oscar Strindberg's older brother Johan Ludvig Strindberg was a successful businessman, the model for the protagonist Arvid Falk's wealthy and socially ambitious uncle in Strindberg's novel Röda rummet (The Red Room).
Strindberg's own version of his childhood is available in his novel The Son of a Servant, but at least one of his biographers, Olof Lagercrantz, warns against its use as a biographical source. Much of what Strindberg wrote has an autobiographical character, but Lagercrantz notes Strindberg's "talent to make us believe what he wants us to believe," and his unwillingness to accept any characterization of his person other than his own.
From the age of seven, Strindberg grew up in the Norrtull area on the northern, almost-rural periphery of Stockholm, not far from Tegnérlunden, the park where Carl Eldh's grand statue of Strindberg was later placed. He went to the elementary schools of Klara and Jakob parishes, continuing to the Stockholms Lyceum, a progressive private school for boys from upper and upper middle class families. He completed his graduation exams studentexamen on May 25 1867, and matriculated at the University of Uppsala in the fall.

Adult years

Early career

Strindberg would spend the next several years between Uppsala and Stockholm, alternately studying for exams and trying his hand at non-academic pursuits. As a young student, Strindberg also worked as an assistant in a chemist's shop in the university town of Lund in southern Sweden. He first left Uppsala in 1868 to work as a schoolteacher, but then studied chemistry for some time at the Institute of Technology in Stockholm in preparation for medical studies, later working as a private tutor before becoming an extra at the Royal Theatre in Stockholm. He returned to Uppsala in January 1870 to study and work on a set of plays, the first of which opened at the Royal Theatre in September 1870, a biography of the Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen. In Uppsala, he started Runa, a small literary club with friends who all took pseudonyms from Nordic mythology; Strindberg called himself Frö after the god of fertility. He spent a few more semesters in Uppsala, finally leaving in March 1872 without graduating. He would often ridicule Uppsala and its professors, as when he published Från Fjerdingen och Svartbäcken ("From Fjerdingen and Svartbäcken", 1877), short stories depicting Uppsala student life. After leaving university for the last time, he embarked on his career as a journalist and critic for newspapers in Stockholm.

Relationships with women

Strindberg was married three times, to Siri von Essen (1850-1912), Frida Uhl (1872-1943), and Harriet Bosse (1878-1961). He had children with all his wives, but his hypersensitive, neurotic character led to bitter divorces. Late in his life he met the young actress and painter Fanny Falkner (1890-1963), whose book illuminates his last years, but the exact nature of their relationship is debated. He had a brief affair in Berlin with Dagny Juel before his marriage to Frida; it has been suggested that the shocking news of her murder was the reason he cancelled his honeymoon with his third wife, Harriet.
Strindberg's relationships with women were troubled and have often been interpreted as misogynistic by contemporaries and modern readers. Most acknowledge, however, that he'd uncommon insight into the hypocrisy of his society's gender roles and sexual morality. Marriage and the family were under stress in Strindberg's lifetime as Sweden industrialized and urbanized at a rapid pace. Problems of prostitution and poverty were debated heatedly among writers, critics and politicians. His early writing often dealt with the traditional roles of the sexes imposed by society, which he criticized as unjust.

Politics

The rise and fall of the Paris Commune in 1871 became a political awakening for the young Strindberg, and he started to see politics as a conflict between the upper- and lower classes. Strindberg was admired by the Swedish working class as a radical writer. He was a Socialist (or maybe more of an Anarchist which he himself claimed on at least one occasion) and his daughter Karin Strindberg married Vladimir Smirnov, one of the leading Russian Bolsheviks. Because of his political standpoints, Strindberg was heavily promoted in socialist countries in Central and Eastern Europe, as well as in the Soviet Union and Cuba.

Writing

A multi-faceted author, Strindberg was often extreme. His novel The Red Room (Röda rummet) (1879) brought him fame. His early plays were written in the Naturalistic style, and his works from this time are often compared with the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. Strindberg's best-known play from this period is Miss Julie (Fröken Julie).
   Strindberg wanted to attain what he called "Greater Naturalism." He didn't prefer expository character backgrounds seen in the work of Ibsen, or write plays that gave his audiences a "slice of life" because he felt that these plays were mundane and uninteresting. Strindberg felt that true naturalism was a psychological battle of the brains (hjarnornas kamp). Two people who hate each other in the immediate moment and strive to drive the other to doom is the type of mental hostility that Strindberg strove to capture. Furthermore, he intended his plays to be impartial and objective, citing a desire to make literature somewhat of a science.
   Later, he underwent a time of inner turmoil known as the Inferno Period, which culminated in the production of a book written in French, Inferno. He also exchanged a few cryptic letters with Nietzsche.
   Strindberg subsequently broke with Naturalism and began to produce works informed by Symbolism. He is considered one of the pioneers of the Modern European stage and Expressionism. The Dance of Death (Dödsdansen), A Dream Play (Ett drömspel) and The Ghost Sonata (Spöksonaten) are well-known plays from this period.

Other interests

Strindberg was also a telegrapher, painter, photographer and alchemist. Painting and photography offered venues for his belief that chance played a crucial part in the creative process. Strindberg's paintings were unique for their time, and went beyond those of his contemporaries for their radical lack of adherence to visual reality. The 117 paintings that are accepted as being by his hand were mostly painted within the span of a few years, and are now seen as among the most original works of nineteenth century art. Though Strindberg was friends with Edvard Munch and Paul Gauguin, and was thus familiar with modern trends, the spontaneous and subjective expressiveness of his landscapes and seascapes can be ascribed also to the fact that he painted only in periods of personal crisis.

Last years

Strindberg's last home was Blå tornet in central Stockholm, where he lived from 1908 until 1912. Today it's a museum.
   By the end of his life Strindberg had returned to Christianity, authoring religious works inspired by Emanuel Swedenborg.
   One year before his death, his main book publisher Albert Bonniers förlag bought the rights to all his writings for 200,000 Swedish crowns, a fortune at that time, which Strindberg promptly shared with his children.
   On Christmas 1911, Strindberg became sick with pneumonia, and he never fully recovered. At this time he also started to suffer from a stomach disease, presumably cancer. He died in May 1912 at the age of 63. Strindberg was interred in the Norra begravningsplatsen in Stockholm, and thousands of people followed him during the funeral proceedings.
   Several statues and busts of him have been erected in Stockholm; most prominently Carl Eldh's erected in 1942 in Tegnérlunden, a park next to the house were Strindberg lived the last years of his life.

Quotations

"When is revolution legal? When it succeeds!"

"There are poisons that destroy the sight and poisons that open the eyes."

"What is economics? A science invented by the upper class in order to acquire the fruits of the labour of the underclass."

"I loathe people who keep dogs. They are cowards who haven't got the guts to bite people themselves."

"A writer is only a reporter for what he's lived."

"When they say Christ descended into Hell, they mean that he descended to earth, this penitentiary, this madhouse and morgue of a world."

"I dream, therefore I am."

"Only men can love, and it blinds them."

"There's a view, current at the moment even among quite sensible people, that women, that secondary form of humanity (second to men, the lords and shapers of human civilisation) should in some way become equal with men, or could so be; this is leading to a struggle which is both bizarre and doomed. It's bizarre because a secondary form, by the laws of science, is always going to be a secondary form. Imagine two people, A (a man) and B (a woman). They start to run a race from the same point, C. A (the man) has a speed of, let's say, 100; B (the woman) has a speed of 60. Now, the question is 'Can B ever overtake A?" and the answer is 'Never!'. Whatever training, encouragement or self-denial is applied, the proposition is as impossible as that two parallel lines should ever meet."

In popular culture

In Woody Allen's 1979 Academy Award nominated film Manhattan, the protagonist (played by Allen) says to a friend, "...You shouldn't ask me for advice. When it comes to relationships with women, I'm the winner of the August Strindberg Award."

In the film Modern Problems (1981), Dabney Coleman recites a "partial" list of his favorite things, including "Strindberg's women - all of them"

Strindberg's play The Father was mentioned in "The West Coast Delay", an episode of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, in a discussion between Nate Corddry and Matthew Perry. Corddry calls it the "scariest play I ever read" and used it to give advice on Perry's relationship troubles. Coincidentally, Strindberg was also named on 30 Rock, NBC's other show dealing with the behind the scenes drama at an SNL-esque show.

Strindberg was also referred to by Mortimer in Joseph Kesselring's play, Arsenic and Old Lace.

Ingmar Bergman's Fanny and Alexander ends with a character reading aloud from Strindberg's A Dream Play.

In a popular Hindi novel Ek Chithada Sukh (A Torn Happiness) by Nirmal Verma, Strindberg looms large over the heads of many characters.

In the Mel Brooks musical, The Producers, the line "So keep your Strindbergs and Ibsens at bay." is present in the song, "Keep It Gay".

Strindberg is also featured in a lighthearted web parody, "Strindberg and Helium." http://www.strindbergandhelium.com/index.html

Major works

He wrote 58 plays, an autobiography (9 volumes, A Soul's Advance, 1886-1903)

The Outlaw, 1871

From Fjerdingen and Svartbäcken, short stories, 1877

Master Olof, drama, 1872

The Red Room, novel, 1879

Swedish People at Work and Play, social history, 1881-1882

The New Country, novel, 1882

Lucky Pehr, drama, 1883

Swedish Destiny and Adventure, I-IV, short stories, 1882-1891

Poetry in Verse and Prose, 1883

Sleepwalker Awakens to the Day, fiction, 1884

Married I-II, short stories, 1884-1886

Utopian on Reality, short stories, 1885

Son of a Servant, I-V, autobiography, 1886-1909

Natives of Hemsö, novel, 1887

The Defense's Speech of a Fool (Le plaidoyer d’un fou), 1887-1895

The Father, drama, 1887

Miss Julie, drama, 1888

Comrades, drama, 1888

Life of an Island Lad, short story, 1888

Pariah, 1889

Among French Peasants, 1889

Creditors, drama, 1888-1889

The Stronger, 1890

Inferno, novel/autobiography, 1897

To Damascus, dramatic trilogy, 1898-1902

Gustav Vasa, drama, 1899

Erik XIV, drama, 1899

The Dance of Death, 1900

Easter, drama, 1900

Engelbrekt, drama, 1901

A Dream Play, drama, 1902

Swan Blood, drama, 1902

The Chamber Plays: The Storm, The Burned Site, The Pelican, The Ghost Sonata, 1907

Merry Christmas!, a verse drama, 1909

The Great Highway, drama, 1909

Carl XII, 1916

An Attempt at Reform (Unknown)Further Information
Get more info on 'August Strindberg'.

External Link Exchanges

Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://august_strindberg.totallyexplained.com">August Strindberg Totally Explained</a>

Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned.